Jobless rate drops to 8.8%, 216K jobs added

posted at 8:49 am on April 1, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

More good news on the job front came today in the latest announcement of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The economy added 216,000 jobs in March and pushed the jobless rate down slightly to 8.8%, from February’s 8.9%:

Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 216,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, leisure and hospitality, and mining. Employment in manufacturing continued to trend up.

The number of unemployed persons (13.5 million) and the unemployment rate (8.8 percent) changed little in March. The labor force also was little changed over the month. Since November 2010, the jobless rate has declined by 1.0 percentage point. (See table A-1.)

The number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, at 8.2 million, was little changed in March but has fallen by 1.3 million since November 2010. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was 6.1 million in March; their share of the unemployed increased from 43.9 to 45.5 percent over the month. (See tables A-11 and A-12.)

Effectively, the addition of jobs is benefiting those who have been out of work for a shorter period of time, which makes sense. The rate of growth is about double that needed to maintain equilibrium, and this marks the first time since the crash that we’ve put together two 200K+ months in a row.

As good as that news is, it will take a very, very long time to create enough jobs to restore the pre-crash levels of employment. The civilian participation rate has not changed from its previous 64.2%, which means that those who have stopped looking for work are still sitting on the sidelines. A year ago, that number was 64.9%. At this rate, it will take more than five years to add six million jobs back into the economy. However, one other sign of good news was a slight drop in the number of people not in the work force (a drop of 11,000), which was the first time in more than two years that number has not risen.

The top-line number is still deceptive in that it compares apples to oranges on unemployment, thanks to the depressed participation rate, but it’s good news to see job additions rise above 200,000 for the second straight month.

Update: Reuters reports that the private sector gained 230,000, but warns that conditions could change:

The private sector accounted for all the new jobs in March, adding 230,000 positions after February’s 240,000 increase. Government employment fell 14,000, declining for a fifth straight month as local governments let go 15,000 workers.

Although rising energy prices — boosted by unrest in the Middle East and North Africa — are eroding consumer confidence, economists do not expect businesses to put the brakes on hiring just yet.

“Employment gains have been modest in recent months, so in that sense I think businesses that were initially very wary of taking on permanent full-time employees are feeling more confident now than was case some months ago,” said Richard DeKaser, an economist at Parthenon Group in Boston.

Energy price hikes could put a big damper on any more expansion, but the prices were going up in February and didn’t appear to dent hiring in March. It’s also true that businesses have squeezed just about all they can out of productivity and have to hire to add capability, if indeed that’s what they plan. But also keep in mind that last quarter’s 3.1% GDP rate won’t translate into a job creation rate much higher than we’re seeing now, either. If the economy is to sustain these numbers, growth has to go past the 4% GDP rate and above and stay there consistently for a long time.

Update II: I didn’t explain the long-term unemployed picture very carefully. While we’re adding jobs to the economy in a real sense (in other words, above the 100K threshold to keep pace with population growth), those benefiting from it are the recently unemployed. That’s why the number of long-term unemployed (27 weeks or more) went up around 110,000 in March and their share of the overall unemployed increased more dramatically from 43.9% to 45.5%.

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IOW, Ed needs a few minutes to sift through the BS in order to build the snark case against this. I submit that this is a manufactured number and predict that in the 2-3 mos prior to NOV 2012, this lil’ figure will settle down to right around 8%….thanks to the Ministry of Plenty.

So the net jobs added last month were 216,000 which caused the unemployment rate to drop 0.1%. Yet when the previous months saw close to the same number of jobs added, the rate dropped nearly a full point. I guess they’re running out of jobless people to no longer count as unemployed.

One of the effects of inflation and stagnant wages. American workers have effectively taken a pay-cut over the last three years (adjusted for inflation). That allows companies to hire more workers while essentially maintaining payroll overhead. Inflation is often a tactic of governments to feign employment as they cut workers’ wages without them seeing it directly.

Combine this with companies and the public sector offering incentives for older workers to retire (leave the workforce) and you will see an uptick in hiring (the numerator) and a small decrease in the number of workers (denominator).

Overshadowing the nation’s economic recovery is not only the number of Americans who have lost their jobs, but also those who have stopped looking for new ones.

These workers are not counted in the Labor Department’s monthly unemployment rate, yet they say they are willing to work. Since the recession began, their numbers have grown by 30 percent, to more than 6.4 million, amounting to a hidden labor force that could stymie the turnaround.

Adding these workers to February’s jobless rate pushes it up to 10.5 percent, well above the more commonly cited 8.9 percent rate. An even broader measure of unemployment, which includes people forced to work part time, stands at nearly 16 percent.

This is just another one of Obama’s “transparency” methods supplied by your spoon-fed BLS.

I fully expect this number to be corrected in a few days. This is a pattern now, the Obama administration is of the belief that they need to get the number down to 8% in order to campaign effectively. Get the headline news out there and then quietly correct the bogus numbers days later.

Everything with Obama and that party of worthless creatures is all about the lie.

Hmmm…do I believe these new Hopey-Changey numbers or my friends, neighbors, relatives, business associates, you know, my old lying eyes.

Real unemployment is closer 20% boys and girls.

Tim Zank on April 1, 2011 at 9:09 AM

A buddy of mine who’s been out of work for a looooooooong time(mostly because he’s a lazy piece of crap) just started a very nice paying IT job. So work is available out there. The catch of course is it’s a contract gig, so we’ll see how long it lasts(plus as I said, he’s lazy and unmotivated which won’t help his longevity there).

That’s the biggest problem right now is that it’s an employer’s market. They can afford to use contract workers at not-so-competitive wages because there are so many people out of a job who are desperate to find employment anywhere. And those of us fortunate to still have jobs haven’t seen wage increases for a while which ain’t helping when the cost of living is going up thanks to inflation and energy prices.

Phony figures from a govt that lies to us and we’re supposed to believe them. If someone is unemployed, don’t give it another name like underemployed. They are all in the same boat and should be counted as one. That’s the only way we will really know just how bad it is. Oh, and the price of gas is only going to make it harder to find and keep work.

What else happened in January? The Pelosicrat Congress was relegated to the backseat.

If we want to make the economic the political, there’s no way for the Obamacrats to ignore this. The best two months we’ve had of Obama’s entire Presidency economically came with a GOP Congress pushing for less spending, lower regulations, lower taxes and limited government.

“It is incomprehensible to me that while creditworthy small businesses in Vermont and throughout the country could not receive affordable loans, the Federal Reserve was providing tens of billions of dollars in credit to a bank that is substantially owned by the Central Bank of Libya,” Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, wrote in a letter to Fed and U.S. officials.

Numbers are definitely pretty good, but you’d hope (and need) at this stage of a recovery for them to be great. The main problem is the jobs aren’t coming fast enough for the inevitable debt problems in the world nor to protect against black swans. The Japan earthquake and disruption to global supply chains and demand hasn’t been factored in, nor, contra Ed, have energy prices really worked through yet.

We’ve stabilized, which wasn’t unexpected, we’re just not in the uebergrowth we need to handle, I’m sorry, win the future.

If we want to make the economic the political, there’s no way for the Obamacrats to ignore this. The best two months we’ve had of Obama’s entire Presidency economically came with a GOP Congress pushing for less spending, lower regulations, lower taxes and limited government.

Repeat until they get it.

Good Lt on April 1, 2011 at 9:36 AM

Yes but the president gets the credit/blame regardless. The 90′s economy took off in early 1995 and the budget was balanced, who gets credit in most people’s eyes? The recent slowdown and mass deficits began in early 2007, and who get’s blamed regardless?

Today is not about Pelosi. Her damage lingers. The damage of excalating energy and food prices have yet to hit. 200,000 is just around the number being added to the workforce which means we truly don’t have growth.
We are being saved by a crazy low dollar and exports.

What else happened in January? The Pelosicrat Congress was relegated to the backseat.

If we want to make the economic the political, there’s no way for the Obamacrats to ignore this. The best two months we’ve had of Obama’s entire Presidency economically came with a GOP Congress pushing for less spending, lower regulations, lower taxes and limited government.

Repeat until they get it.

Good Lt on April 1, 2011 at 9:36 AM

Sometime in early 2012, the GOP needs to make a 30-second ad with a graph of the unemployment rate vs. time from 2008 to date, with two vertical lines: Porkulus passes in February 2009, second vertical line labeled Pelosi House on the left, Boehner House on the right.

In the voice-over, play Biden’s quote about the three-letter word J-O-B-S.

Today is not about Pelosi. Her damage lingers. The damage of excalating energy and food prices have yet to hit. 200,000 is just around the number being added to the workforce which means we truly don’t have growth.
We are being saved by a crazy low dollar and exports.

seven on April 1, 2011 at 10:08 AM

Have you heard of the airlines that have frequent flights to Japan, are cutting those flights? Watch for layoffs at airlines. If these planes don’t go, pilots, flight attendants, baggag handlers, technicians all have to much free time, and airlines can’t afford to pay people to stand around. It’s coming.

In the voice-over, play Biden’s quote about the three-letter word J-O-B-S.

Steve Z on April 1, 2011 at 10:19 AM

Every day I get older, and my mind gets more….weird? That’s the best description I have LOL But I think I know what Biden meant when he said three letter word….j-o-b-s. The last two letters are meant to be one. (b.s.) ;)

One bright note: the Household survey data tells us that we added 291,000 jobs last month!! But here’s the dampener: 290,000 of them were part-time jobs.

That was from Ace’s site. If that’s true, this jobs report is a joke. Yes, part-time work is better than no work at all(well, depending on how much you’re making as an unemployment check could theoretically be worth more). But until we can get people back to work FULL-TIME with benefits, this is meaningless.

Although rising energy prices — boosted by unrest in the Middle East and North Africa — are eroding consumer confidence, economists do not expect businesses to put the brakes on hiring just yet.

Oh? Perhaps those magnificent economic experts at Reuters had better stop by the local grocery store and take a look at what energy prices are doing in other areas. Companies don’t hire when they can see the consumer spending only on gasoline and food.

Does anyone actually believe their figures? Every month for what, the last 18 months, HA has later announced the ‘suprising’ adjustments downward. How many times have we read here and other places about how they are ‘cooking’ the stats? IN 2012, regardless of the % or jobs added or saved or whatever they come up with, 20+ million people who are unemployed or underemployed will be heard from at the polls. Whomever the GOP candidate is, all he/she will have to ask is what Reagan asked. Are you better off today than 4 years ago? AMF Obama.

Maybe there is some light, I actually got a phone call from a real employer who will be hiring someone in the next month. First time that’s happened in over a year! That said, it’s almost impossible to believe these figures.

1. Eliminate millions oj jobs,
2. Determine you cut back too much.
3. Wait a while until you feel it is safe enough to rehire.
4. Rehire just enough to handle workload and delayed projects.
5. Re-assess when bulk of work is completed.

The company I contract with hires about ten independent contractors for every full time employee. And they only hire FTE to replace those who leave. Unless you are on a mulri-year project, you get short term contracts at best.

What else happened in January? The Pelosicrat Congress was relegated to the backseat.

If we want to make the economic the political, there’s no way for the Obamacrats to ignore this. The best two months we’ve had of Obama’s entire Presidency economically came with a GOP Congress pushing for less spending, lower regulations, lower taxes and limited government.

Repeat until they get it.

Just like the credit the GOP received when Gingrich and the GOP took Clinton and the DEMS to the cleaners when it came to fiscal sanity in the early ’90s? To this day everyone thinks it was Clinton and the DEMS policies that produced the huge surplus. The albatross of failed economic polices are always hung around the neck of GOP not the DEMS. How do you explain where a good number of people think that the stalled economy is solely due to the policies of George Bush. Heck the DEMS swept in 2007 and as we know Congress pull the strings in terms of finances. I’m still awaiting the Time magazine expose on how Nancy Pelosi and the Congress lead by the DEMS bankrupted this country. I agree with you that this indeed might be a reaction to the election held in November, but don’t expect that narrative to hit the populous because that is not the narrative the MSM wants to push.

The company I contract with hires about ten independent contractors for every full time employee. And they only hire FTE to replace those who leave. Unless you are on a mulri-year project, you get short term contracts at best.

Mr_Magoo on April 1, 2011 at 11:23 AM

Using independent contractors is also a dodge around the disastrous Obamacare. Expect that trend to continue to grow.

Can anyone really believe this Labor Numbers especially from an administration that uses the metric of saved or created jobs? How many of these ‘new’ jobs are really just phantasms, the same way the jobs numbers on the Porkulus were phantom jobs? Darrell Issa has his work cut out for him.

..one wonders how $4 per gallon gas for the next few months will affect this number. I just paid $71.01 to fill up my tank. My grocers’, cleaners’, people delivering goods and providing services are feeling similar “kinetic” outflows..

..and that’s money that cannot be put into wages and salaries unless you’re a towel-head in the oil fields of some Mooz-lem sh!thole country.

If they can just figure out how to get more unemployed to stop looking altogether and then pretend that they don’t exist anymore (really, who cares about these bums anyway), BarryCorp will have some decent job numbers come November 2012.

Doesn’t this put a damper on the Democratic screed that reductions in our spending will cost us 700,000 jobs? Yes, we may lose 700,000 public sector jobs, but the private sector will pick up the loses. Can the Republicans say that cutting $2B per week in spending (over the past 5 weeks) has actually sparked private sector hiring?

Fear not….DOL will surely revise the numbers downward next month (a “correction”) that will be ignored by the MSM.

olesparkie on April 1, 2011 at 9:06 AM

The common assumption of the Dept. of Labor always revising downward appears to be incorrect. In fact, this jobs report notes a small upwards revision for jobs figures in both February and January. And that was after the February jobs report had a pretty big upwards revision for January.

The February total (including Gov’t)jobs number was revised from 192K to 194K. In January we gained 68K jobs(total), not 65K as was reported last month. This is the second upward revision to the January data that first came out as a gain of only 36K. So total revisions to January’s number was 32K.

The revisions for private sector jobs were more positive. Actual private sector jobs added in February was 2240K not the 222K previously reported. Increase of 18K. The January the gain was 94K, not 68K, or the initial number of 50K.

Including the recent upward revisions to back months, total (including gov’t)jobs increased by 223K as of the March number. Private Sector jobs increased by 274K.

Still lots of room for improvement. And unemployment rate will start to rise in near term as more discouraged workers come back into the equation.

The monthly numbers have been getting upped a month later for the most part, though oddly almost all weekly unemployment claims get upped the next week as well, but for the last 3 years at least the annual revisions have been down. The last couple of years in a major way, iirc 2010 was cut from around 900k new jobs to 600k after the annual revision.

I think the problem is the seasonal adjustment model was broken by the 2008 recession and biased to the upside for monthly reports. Then they add all up the unadjusted numbers for the year and find out they overestimated.

Either way, as I noted above, I agree good, though I don’t think there’s much time left for improvement.

But we’ve previously read that it takes about 330,000 new jobs PER MONTH just to keep up with new entrants into the workforce!!!

So the statistic as presented CANNOT be accurate!!! The 216K jobs is 120K jobs short of what we need JUST TO KEEP THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE THE SAME!!!

So unless there was an unreported mass suicide of over 120,000 workers last month, the only way to make the “Jobless rate could go DOWN would be to “cook the books” by failing to count “Jobless” the same way it was counted last month!!!

Since November 2010, the jobless rate has declined by 1.0 percentage point.

Hmmmmm….let me see….assuming these numbers reflect reality (and I ain’t), what could have happened in November 2010 that might give a business person the idea that hiring someone would be profitable?

I know, making such an assumption carries numerous logical risks, but you know leftists are already out there touting obama’s brilliant policies for these numbers. They care nothing for logic. I say deny them the stage and insist it was leftists losing control of the purse that caused this. Let’s use their tactics against them, and yes I mean lie through our teeth. Most voters won’t make the connection I’m alluding to all by themselves, they need it shoved down their throats. Don’t believe me? Then explain the election of 2008.

Not encouraging news when the only way work can be had is based on relationships of fear and distrust. When things start to become an applicant’s market, and FTE is offered across-the-board, then I can see a recovery. Contract employment for otherwise more permanent work never suggests a recovery, but an entrenchment.

That said, these numbers are meant to further bury the long-term unemployed. You cant fake a recovery if you have people visibly unemployed.

But we’ve previously read that it takes about 330,000 new jobs PER MONTH just to keep up with new entrants into the workforce!!!

So the statistic as presented CANNOT be accurate!!! The 216K jobs is 120K jobs short of what we need JUST TO KEEP THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE THE SAME!!!

So unless there was an unreported mass suicide of over 120,000 workers last month, the only way to make the “Jobless rate could go DOWN would be to “cook the books” by failing to count “Jobless” the same way it was counted last month!!!

I CALL B.S. AND STATISTICAL FRAUD!!!

landlines on April 1, 2011 at 4:58 PM

I call BS on someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. No one is sure at the moment what the natural growth rate of the labor force is, since we need a normal economy to gauge the now over 65 boomers interest in still working. That being said it is in 50,000-125,000 range and no where near 330,000 (the CBO I believe I saw pegs it at 90k).

Looking at historical data, the only years growth rate was close to that was 1974 at 310k and ’78 at 300k. But those were in the heart of the boomers coming of age and women beginning to work. The only recent year in the neighborhood is 1999 when it was 270k a month, but then ’98 and 2000 were in the 140k range.